Beverage delivery to on-demand point of purchase or point of thirst customers, such as fountain drink customers, in some locales has heretofore not been achieved in an efficient, cost-effective, easily re-producible manner. In developed countries such on-demand beverage delivery typically occurs through complex electro-mechanical beverage dispensers. Such electro-mechanical beverage dispensers may mix multiple ingredients, such as a syrup concentrate and a diluent, at the point of dispensing the beverage. For example, an electro-mechanical beverage dispenser may mix COCA-COLA® syrup with carbonated water as the COCA-COLA® beverage is being dispensed.
In developing locales, such electro-mechanical beverage dispensers may not be suitable. Such non-suitability may exist because of the size or cost of the beverage dispensers, lack of reliable electrical resources to power the beverage dispensers, and/or lack of supply chains or infrastructure suitable to reliably deliver the required ingredients to mix the beverages. For example, large bag-in-box syrups and food grade CO2 containers often used in electro-mechanical beverage dispensers may not be readily available in some locales. Further, potable water supplies may not be readily available.
In some developing locales customers may be serviced with returnable, refillable containers. For example, a customer may enter a merchant location, purchase a beverage for consumption, and be supplied with a refillable container, such as a glass bottle, containing the purchased beverage. The customer may be unable to remove the beverage-filled glass bottle from the merchant location because the glass bottle may remain the property of a beverage company supplying the merchant or the merchant themselves. Therefore, the customer may be required to consume the entirety of the beverage at the merchant location and return the glass bottle. Alternatively, the customer may transfer the beverage from the glass bottle to another container carried or otherwise owned by the customer and return the glass bottle.
Because each container may be returned for a deposit, some customers may not be able to purchase the container with the beverage so that the customer may enjoy the beverage at their leisure rather than being constrained to the merchant location as described above. Also, some customers may not want to or be able to pay for the entire amount of beverage within the container. Accordingly, use of the aforementioned returnable, refillable containers may limit the consumer base in some locales.